In a short text published in artforum Magazine at the beginning of July, Kathrin Rhomberg, the curator of the sixth Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art, pointed out that the socio-political changes during the past ten years are relevant to the understanding of the present artistic context: “One of the dominant tendencies in the art world over the past ten years has been a kind of “new historicism”: a retrospective view of the twentieth century, of modernism for example. When I discuss this interest in twentieth-century questions and issues with younger artists, they often give the same answer: that the future isn’t something they think about anymore. So it became urgent again for me to ask: Is there a relationship between art and the present moment, and if so, what does it look like? The expression making the title of the exhibition needs to be interpreted in the same key: what is waiting out there calls for an investigation of social realities, as the selected artists do not necessarily activate strategies or documentary tools, but rather an appropriation of “reality” with all its inconsistencies, stressing on its production channels.
KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin
Straßenseite / Front
Foto / Photo: Uwe Walter, 2008
Copyright Berlin Biennale für zeitgenössische Kunst / Berlin Biennale for
Contemporary Art
Those who are familiar with curator Kathrin Rhomberg’s work will not be surprised to find in the Berlin Biennale a focus on a very young generation of artists (with names that may not be as noted yet) and the absence, with one major exception – the exhibition of Adolph Menzel assigned to Michael Fried, and the Alte Nationalgalerie –, of the “collection/ archive” works.
Furthermore, the choice of stepping beyond the downtown of Berlin, with “headquarters” however at the Kunst-Werke Institute for Contemporary Art, sets this edition apart, since Oranienstrasse, Kreuzberg Mehringdamm with their daily dynamics, shaped by the residents of this district, the vast majority of which are Turkish immigrants, can provide, according to the curator a positive not so much for cohabitation, as for the construction of a future society.
Oranienplatz 17, 10999 Berlin
Foto / Photo: Christian Sievers, 2010
Copyright Berlin Biennale für zeitgenössische Kunst / Berlin Biennale for
Contemporary Art
At first glance, the exhibition deters, I have to admit, by ignoring (deliberately, I now think) a special, three-dimensional catalyst, able to turn the visit of the spectator into a visual experience. If works at the KW are presented as monographic cells, the second major venue at least, Oranienplatz 17, needed an “oblique”, a stronger focus on the possibilities for conceptual interaction of the selected works. On the other hand, it is true that the biennial, as it was structured, is more than an exhibition divided into several venues: the present edition is enhanced not only through an intense performances program (La Monnaie Vivante / The Living Currency / Die lebende Münze), workshops, discussions and public presentations or satellite projects, but also by the introduction of an theoretical instrument, facilitated by the e-flux Magazine (see the issue guest-edited by Marion von Osten) - all these making up a much broader repertoire of expression and production. I am not an advocate of the spectacular in contemporary art, especially when the core issue of the exhibition concerns precisely the distance between reality and its representation, but I would have nevertheless allowed for some phase-outs to break the linearity of the display, to activate the viewing of the spectator. However, I understand that reduction and terseness - minimalism, if you will - are taken as working principles, both in terms of the number of guest artists and the exhibition format. But we will deal in the following episodes with works and artists that can bring more light into the curatorial concept of the exhibition.
